The food should be sustainable –and local

Less food waste, fewer calories and more local produce. Kolding Municipality is one in 12 European cities who have set out to solve the task of making the food system more sustainable.

By Anette Jorsal

Kolding Municipality and the University of Southern Denmark have received funding of DKK eight million from the EU. The money shall go to rethinking the entire food chain in a living laboratory. Stakeholders include food manufacturers, distributors, retail and consumers.

In Kolding, the project title is FOOD2030, and the laboratory project will run for four years.

The aim of FOOD2030 is to develop a more sustainable food system. This involves studying food waste and local production.

Kolding is one of 12 participating European cities, which will be sharing knowledge and working together on developing long-term solutions for a more balanced food system.

And it makes good sense to take a closer look at the existing food system, which in many ways is unbalanced. Some have too little, others too much. 800 million people worldwide are undernourished, while two billion are overweight. In our rich part of the world, we throw away around one third of all food produced, and more and more people develop lifestyle diseases.

The 12 participating cities range from Oslo and Tampede in the north to San Sebastian and Athens in the south.